"... In that brief outline of national organization, which the Commune did not have time to develop further, it is stated quite definitely that the Commune ought to have... become the political form even of the smallest village"... From the communes there would be elected a "national delegation" in Paris.

"... The few, but very important functions which would then still remain with the central government, were not to be abolished, - such an assertion would have been conscious fraud, - but were to be transferred to communal, i.e., strictly responsible, officials...

... National unity was not to be destroyed, but, on the contrary, organized by means of communal structure. National unity was to become reality through the destruction of that state power which represented itself as the embodiment of this unity, but wished to be independent of the nation, standing above it. In reality this state power was merely a parasitic growth on the body of the nation... The task consisted in cutting away the purely oppressive organs of the old governmental power, while transferring its legitimate functions away from such a power that pretends to stand above society, and handing them over to responsible servants of society."

To what degree the opportunists of contemporary social-democracy failed to understand - perhaps it would be more accurate to say: refused to understand - Marx's arguments, is best demonstrated by the infamously notorious book of the renegade Bernstein: *The Preconditions of Socialism and the Tasks of Social-Democracy*. Precisely in regard to Marx's words cited above, Bernstein wrote that this program "in its political content exhibits in all essential features the greatest similarity to Proudhon's federalism... Despite all other disagreements between Marx and the 'petty bourgeois'"

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Proudhon (Bernstein places the words 'petty bourgeois' in quotation marks, which are meant to be ironic in his opinion) on these points the course of thought between them is as close as is possible." Of course, Bernstein continues, the significance of municipalities is growing, but "it seems to me doubtful whether the first task of democracy should be such a dissolution (Auflosung - literally: dissolution, dissolution) of modern states and such complete transformation (Umwandlung - revolution) of their organization, as Marx and Proudhon imagine - the formation of a national assembly from delegates of provincial or regional assemblies, which in turn would be composed of delegates from communes, - so that the entire former form of national representation would disappear completely" (Bernstein, *Preconditions*, p. 134 and 136 of the German edition of 1899).

This is simply monstrous: to confuse Marx's view on "the destruction of state power - the parasite" with Proudhon's federalism! But this is no accident, for it does not even occur to the opportunist that Marx is speaking here not at all of federalism as opposed to centralism, but of the smashing of the old, bourgeois state machine which exists in all bourgeois countries.

What occurs to the opportunist is only what he sees around him, in the atmosphere of petty-bourgeois conformism and "reformist" stagnation, namely only "municipalities"! The opportunist has forgotten how even to think about the revolution of the proletariat.

This is ridiculous. But it is remarkable that on this point no one disputed with Bernstein. Many refuted Bernstein - particularly Plekhanov in Russian literature, Kautsky in European literature, but neither one nor the other spoke of this distortion of Marx by Bernstein.

The opportunist has so thoroughly forgotten how to think and reflect upon revolution that he ascribes "federalism" to Marx, confusing him with Proudhon, the founder of anarchism. And those wishing to be orthodox Marxists, to defend the teachings of revolutionary Marxism - Kautsky and Plekhanov - remain silent about this! Here

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